Foxtel and Roadshow Films successfully obtain orders blocking access to The Pirate Bay and other foreign BitTorrent and streaming websites

On 15 December 2016 the Federal Court made orders blocking access to foreign websites, including The Pirate Bay, IsoHunt and SolarMovie. This is the first time such orders have been made under s115A of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), which was inserted into the Act in June 2015.

Foxtel and Roadshow Films brought proceedings against every major Internet Service Provider in Australia seeking orders that the ISPs take reasonable steps to disable access to a number of foreign websites including The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, Torrent Hound, IsoHunt and SolarMovie.

Justice Nicholas found that the requirements for website blocking orders were established for each of the targeted websites, including:

(a) the websites are located outside Australia;
(b) the websites infringe, or facilitate an infringement of, copyright; and
(c) the primary purpose of the websites is to infringe, or to facilitate the infringement of copyright.